The boys were greatly disappointed. They had confidently expected to find Archie and his friends there, but they saw no one except a solitary stranger, who was doubled up over a small bed of coals, rubbing his palms together and shaking violently in every limb. His hands and face were blue with cold. He glanced up as they approached, and then looked down into the fire again.
“Hallo, stranger!” cried Dick. “Whar mought you be a travellin’ to?”
“I’m lost,” was the faint reply, “an’ starvin’ an’ freezin’.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the trapper; “freezin’ with a fire in front of you an’ all this timber around you!”
“Boys,” said Uncle Dick, “unpack the provisions, a couple of you, and the rest of us cut some wood. This poor fellow is so nearly benumbed that he can’t keep his fire going.”
A few minutes’ work made a great change in the appearance of the stranger’s camp. Three or four small trees had been cut down for the horses to browse upon; the fire was roaring cheerfully; a coffee-pot and several slices of bacon were spattering on the coals; and the bushes and saplings had been cleared away for a space of twenty feet or more, and piled on one side of the camp to protect it from the fury of the wind. The kind-hearted and thoughtful George, noticing that the stranger’s well-worn clothing was but a poor protection against the wintry blasts, had thrown a pair of heavy blankets over his shoulders; but he was so cold that he hugged the fire long after all the rest had begun to back away from it. The boys were eager to hear how he came there, but old Bob restrained their impatience. “A man that’s hungry an’ half froze can’t talk,” said he. “Wait till he gets warmed up with a pot or two of hot coffee, an’ stows away a few pounds of them bacon an’ crackers, an’ his tongue will run lively enough, I tell you.”
The old trapper was mistaken for once, however. The stranger emptied his cup as fast as it was filled for him, and disposed of three men’s share of the bacon and biscuits, but they seemed to have no effect on his tongue. He was as dumb as a wooden man, and seemed uneasy in the presence of those who had fed and warmed him.
At length Uncle Dick began questioning him, telling him also that if he would let them know where he wanted to go the trappers would put him on his course; and furthermore, they would give him provisions enough to last him until he reached his destination. He finally succeeded in getting the stranger started on his story, which he told in such a way that none of his auditors believed a word of it. He said he had belonged to a wagon-train which had been attacked by the Indians. The most of the emigrants had been massacred, all the stock driven off and he had barely escaped with his life. It happened a week ago, and he had had nothing to eat since.
Uncle Dick and his party heard him through, and then settled back and looked their disbelief. If there had been any Indian depredations during the week that had just passed, Colonel Gaylord would not have been ignorant of the fact, and they would have been certain to have heard of it through him. The impression at once became general that the man had been doing something that would not bear investigation, else why had he trumped up such a story? They made no remark, however, and it is probable that the stranger would have been permitted to go his way without any further questioning or offers of assistance from them, had it not been for one little circumstance. There was a witness against him which he had not thought of, and Frank was the one who discovered it. The latter, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire with his hands clasping his knees, suddenly straightened up and looked closely at something lying on the ground by the stranger’s side. Presently he arose and walking over to him, laid hold of the object, which was concealed from the view of the others by the blankets that George Le Dell had thrown over the man’s shoulders. As he made an effort to lift it, the stranger seized it and held it fast. The expression on Frank’s face brought the Club to their feet in a twinkling.
“Let go,” said Frank, earnestly. “I want to see what you’ve got here.”